


Information Dissemination and Privacy Policy

by alliedwolves



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Memory Alteration, Mention of non-consensual alcohol consumption, Mind Control, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, Power Imbalance, Slut Shaming, Victim Blaming, by which I mean the long winding monolgue intended to hurt the hearer, canon-typical Elias Bouchard, canon-typical suicidality, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23590579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alliedwolves/pseuds/alliedwolves
Summary: Tim tries to kill Elias for everything he's done, since he's pretty sure watching Danny die was already the worst that could happen.Elias proves him wrong.Then there's the aftermath.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Tim Stoker & Elias Bouchard
Comments: 40
Kudos: 59
Collections: The_Magnusquerade





	1. A losing stake

**Author's Note:**

> AutumnAgain:  
> Oh you made it worse! This is fine!  
> This makes extensive reference to my other Magnusquerade fic, Reskilling, and its Affects on Employee Morale  
> https://archiveofourown.org/collections/The_Magnusquerade/works/23444626

Takes place shortly after Melanie learns about her dad, and joins Jon’s part of the line. 

Elias didn’t exactly need his powers to know Tim was coming. That deliberate stride down the corridor was enough. He sent an email to Rosie, asking her to hold off on his four forty meeting with Arthur from accounts, and settled himself comfortably. 

Tim was both more foolish, and cleverer than most gave him credit for. Headstrong and heartstrong, the pulse of his thrumming heart echoing to vampiric hearing as he strode down the corridor. Elias wondered how much of himself Tim had been allowed to remember, whether he’d taken up Melanie’s ‘stake’ in things.

A hit, a palpable hit, he thought, as Tim knocked, at the sound of wood against the office door. 

“Knock knock,” Tim said, letting himself in. His hand was curled tightly around his stake, held low at his side, and each beat of his heart spoke of the urge to use it. His other hand still held the door, ready to slam it if Elias pounced prematurely, no doubt. 

Perhaps Jon had not let Tim and Martin have all their memories back after all. Elias had always prefered to play with Tim, to draw it out, and he was not inclined to make an exception simply because Tim was looking to push the issue. He smiled blandly, glamoured human teeth too-shiny under the office lights. 

He set his pen, and his silver-bladed penknife aside. “Come to defend Ms. King’s honour? She won’t thank you.” He asked, and the handle rattled in Tim’s hand. 

“As if she’d need me for that. I’m here because you’re a slimy bully, and it’s not like you’ve got anything worse for  _ me  _ to remember.” 

Tim’s guts would roil, if they weren’t almost burning out of him in anticipation. His grip on his stake, a weapon he used to disdain for silver knives not unlike the one on the desk, didn’t waver. He let the door click behind him. 

He leapt forward, then swerved, grunting with the effort of a feint: Elias had to thrust himself more clumsily than he liked from his chair with a clatter. Someone who didn’t know Tim as intimately as he had come to would be dead already. He curled his lip delicately, letting his fangs extend. 

Muscle memories, and memories proper, warred in Tim.

_ Did he really need to be on his feet?  _

_ Hissing, blood human and monster rising and mingling in pools on the ground _

_ Drinking deep, needing it. Begging for it.  _

_ The pain in a monster's eye.  _

Tim lunged again, praying instinct and training would be enough to overcome these memories. 

He very nearly made it. The stake snapped, turned aside at the last moment into the wall rather than whatever Elias was using for a heart. Tim stumbled forwards, threw his elbow back too late to avoid Elias grabbing his wrist, and letting him spin out. Momentum, aided by Elias’s grasp, had him pinned against the wall by his neck, staring down red eyes. 

“Oh, Tim. You  _ have _ improved. Jon must be very proud.” Fangs did nothing to improve Elias’s smug grin. 

“Fuck off.” If it was possible with cold, imperious hands around his throat, Tim would have spat in his tormentor’s face. All he had was a glare, and the certainty he couldn’t be hurt in the way Melanie and Martin could. A most ephemeral shield. Tim reeked of despair, and that stubbornness that came from nothing to lose. It was on Elias to prove that wasn’t the case. 

“Do you think your brother would be proud of you?” The taunt made Tim’s eyes narrow, but he remained steadfast in his glare. 

The laugh of a man at the gallows had more joy in it than Tim’s. “You can’t show me anything I don’t already know.” Tim said. 

Elias smiled. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Do you remember the Lukas party I brought you to, after Prentiss attacked?  _ Properly _ remember, I mean. Martin and I were otherwise occupied, and he was very good for Peter, I’m sure you’d like to know.” 

Tim found himself submerged in that goodness, in Martin’s desperation to serve, and his own, teeth at his throat and hands running down his shoulders, a web in his mind. He shuddered, otherwise resolute. 

“I could of course show you Martin’s memory in detail, but I doubt that would move you, really. After all, you were so out of it with all those compliments from Mike Crew’s arm. And how many people wanted a taste.”

Tim struggled, the arm holding him still against the wall unbudging. “‘Used to be’ don't count anymore, boss. And for all Jon’s an arrogant defeatist prat, he wouldn’t let that happen to Martin. Or me.” 

He refused to dwell on how sure he was that his master Jon knew what was best.

“Word did get around, you know. And Sarah, of the Stranger clan, she went and got their leader.” Elias went on inexorably, as inevitable as the grave and almost as unquestionable. “She didn’t even stop to have a  _ sip  _ and I’m sure you felt that  _ quite  _ keenly. Since it was your purpose for the night.” His red eyes glimmered with malice and power, boring into Tim. His struggles slowed, and then finally stopped, trapped in those eyes, and in that night. 

Tim’s breath hitched, dragged along through the memory with Elias, sure of its truth as though he was there once again. He remembered the leader of the stranger clan.  She . 

She? 

Deftly, Elias edited the memory as he gave it. Names and faces and teeth had merged into pleasure long prior for Tim anyway, and it only made sense that things should be tilted.

No. 

Tim’s stomach dropped out of him, the half remembered evening falling away into one moment he couldn’t escape, that drilled into him. 

Their leader. He had mismatched eyes. Broad shoulders straining against a too long, too narrow coat, and fangs marring an exasperated, brotherly smile. 

Danny. 

This was his brother, taken by the stranger, cooing over him. Dressed like one of the circus, his eyes mismatching shades of red and his hands cold as the dead are cold. 

Danny tutted at him.

“Elias really  _ does  _ have your mind on lockdown, doesn’t he? Maybe we should go for a stroll, and reminisce for a while,  **_hmmmm~_ ** ?”

Tim heard his own voice answer. “No. No thank you.” Had he ever been that drunk by choice?

Danny pouted.

“Do you always do what Elias says to do? How  _ Booooring _ . I bet your  **master** is proud of you.”

Tim had long since started to cry, had been crying since the moment he recognised Danny, but it was at that deathly touch holding him up, at that mention of a master, last smile before Danny leant in to drink; to  _ use  _ Tim as he was here to be used, that he started sobbing. 

Elias let the memory build to its crescendo. Let him remember the time before, forced onto Tim the contrast of Danny crying and torn into onstage, deep underground, and the shining, bouncy figure who drank from him at the party, so clearly the same albeit changed. 

“It seems like you simply can’t escape from your role. Everyone you love simply ends up… monstrous.”

Tim shuddered, his sobs still wracking his frame. Elias let him drop, falling to his knees as though once again giving up his blood to Elias for supper. 

He tutted, and Tim flinched. “Honestly, we’ve been almost careless with you. Myself, Sasha, Danny…. We left you behind with new masters to be used. Where you belong.” Elias was gentle, monstrously gentle, as he let that sink in like fangs or a silvered blade. 

“Now, unless you’d like to do something useful with your offers to help  _ someone _ and relieve Arthur of his mealtime duties— I’m afraid I must ask you to leave my office.” 

Tim laughed for far too long, ignoring the way it cracked halfway. 

“It can’t be true.” Tim wasn’t as sure as he sounded, crying into his jacket sleeve, hands and throat still burning with cold from Elias’s hands. 

Elias shrugged. 

“Either you can come back and ask me nicely, without trying to kill me, or you can trust Jon, who we  _ both  _ know has your best interests at heart, to unpick at what you remember. I don’t much care: it’s a lesson for at least one of you either way.” Elias’s fangs hadn’t gone anywhere, still out, still dangerous. Tim had yet to rise from his knees. A familiar image, to be sure. 

“Now, I know someone mentioned a feeding meeting, and again, unless  _ you  _ are volunteering to satiate me, I suggest you  _ Leave.”  _ Elias didn’t put any force into the word, simply said it as though he were thinking about it. 

Tim stood up, leaving the useless sticks behind him. He avoided looking at the desk and its long, silver pocket knife, just in case his despair got the better of him, and he stayed behind. 

\---------------

Jon could tell where Martin and Tim and Melanie were, provided they were in the archives. It didn’t initially worry him when Tim left early, disappearing from his view: he deserved as much space as he could get from the Archives where he could get it. He did, however, have to come back in eventually, and Jon could feel a wrongness the instant Tim stepped in the front door of the institute, let alone as deep as the Archives.

He did his best not to use his Sight to simply Know when things were wrong, what the wrongness was. This, though. This was like putting a hand on a bandaid over a blazing infection. He didn’t need to see more than the very edges of Tim’s mind to know something was wrong. 

Tim wouldn’t appreciate that. He  _ had _ to try and help somehow, though. Tim being  _ his  _ was immaterial, he insisted to himself. Someone whose mind felt like that needed help either way. 

Martin rushed to make tea when Jon asked, using his words and not his mind. He shuffled through Tim’s cases, taking out anything he thought might be a ‘real one’ and fail to record, and divided them between Martin, Melanie, and himself, replacing them with lighter work. 

Tim fell into his chair, when he arrived. Melanie looked up, then looked again at the mottling of bruises above his collar. 

“Jesus!” she exclaimed, “What did Jon do,  _ miss _ and whack you with his  _ forehead?”  _

Tim just pressed his head into his desk. Danny’s eyes still laughed at him from behind his eyelids. 

It was going to be as hideous as this until he gave in. He wasn’t going to give Elias, or Jon the satisfaction. He’d hold out as long as he could. 


	2. The daily grind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim struggles with the 'memories' Elias fed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd meant this as a two parter but turns out Tim's subconscious had *opinions* about what he remembered of the party, and of Danny.

Life. One damn thing after another until they overlap. 

He thunked his head against the desk, startling Martin into pouring the tea he’d brought on the carpet. Tim laughed, long and ugly. He kept his head on the table, unable or unwilling to get up and help, letting Melanie’s caustic comments and Martin’s reassurances run like blood into a glass. They’d both fuss in their own way. He’d made it to the end of the day, and then begged off Melanie _and_ Martin’s offer of post work pub time, citing a headache. 

At least Jon still gave him a wide berth, and Tim was still himself enough to be grimly satisfied with that. He’d worried that whatever Elias had done, while rifling through him like his fucking stationary drawer would _make_ him want Jon to take him apart and put him back together like a faulty watch, but that didn’t seem to be it. At least, not much more than the constant undercurrent of his mental river, eddies he’d learned well enough to avoid. 

The fact he’d planned for Elias’s schedule meant there was only one working day left. Friday, then the weekend. He just had to hold out til then. He’d be able to figure something out by Monday. Right? Or maybe he’d be able to stay away this time, consign himself to go through withdrawal or die. Yay. Tim pulled his coat closer, suddenly growing cold. 

He’d be leaving Danny out there, the head of the Stranger Clan. 

Tim could feel the cold fingers holding him up, bruising his neck, could feel his current bruises like the after image of his brother’s cruelty. There was clearly nothing left of him in that face. In those bloody red eyes. 

So unlike Danny. A Stranger. Tim’s blood ran cold. No matter where he looked, the red blinking lights of indicators, traffic lights, and reflections of them in the slick bitumen laughed up at him, burgundy and crimson. His brother, the monster. 

Unless that was a false memory. Could Elias lie with his memory whammy Joe Spooky shit? 

_Jon would know, Jon would tell him what he needed to know, and everything would be right again._

There it was. It wasn’t Elias, not directly. It was the fact of the blood they’d all shared as a band of good cows ready for harvesting. Tim was just that far gone already. 

* * *

He dreamed. 

_He was in a tank, faces and fangs and deep red eyes passing over him and Martin and Melanie and Basira. He looked up, and begged, somewhere between a lobster in a tank and the puppy in the window, and he begged and begged and begged._

_Hands ran over him, and he lent into them, whining when they pulled away no matter how sharp, how burning, how suffocating they were. How much it hurt. How new or how strange. A woman who wasn’t Sasha, couldn’t be, she lingered longest of all before Danny loomed over him and he gave himself up, **pliant** …. _

Tim sat up with a strangled scream. The sheets and duvet were too much, too restrictive, and he kicked them off, almost screaming again when his body weight kept them close to his body. Like Mike at his back. The fact he wasn’t keeping him from running, like the monster he was, but kept him upright like a concerned friend at a pub crawl… Tim retched. He kept retching and barely made it to the bathroom in time, stomach heaving despite having missed dinner to Elias’s confrontation. There wasn’t anything to come up, and wasn’t that just a fucking metaphor for how things were right now. 

By the time he cleaned himself up with a hot shower and new pyjamas, cleaned his teeth to gleaming, and rinsed his mouth out, he felt halfway human. The alarm clock glowed, letting him know it was 3.14 am. 

“Thank god it’s Friday, am I right,” he mumbled, pulling the duvet back over his head to try make the best of the next 3 hours he had to sleep. 

_Tim's hands were caught in the grasp of one of those guests as immovable as stone, and Mike looked a little concerned as the Hunt clan laughed at Tim's struggles to get out of it. Suddenly it wasn't laughter, but screaming, and in his hands were twin silver knives, and the screaming was coming from Danny,_

4.30 am. 

_Danny tearing Tim's skin off right there at the party, leaving Tim ever more vulnerable to prying fangs...._

5.02 am

 _The stage was set, it was show time, and the opening notes of_ All That Jazz _were pounding as hands and teeth scraped over Tim's skin, and Danny laughed and met his eyes and called him a precious understudy..._

The alarm sounded, thankfully an innocuous nothing of a sound and not a musical number. Time slammed his hand down for his phone, stared at the ceiling, weighed his options. 

He didn't think about Elias's smile as he called in sick. 


	3. Pillow Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: The beginning scene of this follows directly on from the end of Nevanna’s excellent Practical Information Retrieval (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23552482 ) though it goes on from there. 
> 
> Jon and Martin try and figure out how to help Tim.

Martin lay staring at the ceiling, one arm winding tightly around Jon as Jon curled up closer. Their fingers laced together over Martin’s stomach, and Martin wondered idly if Jon was ever warmed enough in the night to feel more alive. He wasn’t the smallest man, but nonetheless, Martin’s metabolism ran fast and hot, and only more so since Elias had started giving him blood, since Jon had made him even more  _ his  _ than he’d ever been Elias’s… 

“We were all being manipulated. I wonder if… Do you think Tim would want to remember what happened last year?” There was no way Tim would welcome the truth about how completely he’d been used, and by how many monsters, and how much he’d  _ enjoyed  _ it. But would it be better to keep that from him?

“I think we should remind him that he has a choice,” Jon said after a pause. “Though I don’t imagine that he’ll see it as much of one.”

“Still. More than we had, at least.” Martin stroked Jon’s hair, twisted his hand gently in the loose, shaggy length of it. It’d been a while since last it was cut, that closeness to a stranger something Jon couldn’t handle right now. He’d miss the way the layers in it stuck out, once they were gone. Jon leaned up and kissed him, gently, and Martin’s breath hitched.  _ Oh, do that again,  _ he thought, unknowingly loud. Jon obliged, and a very lovely evening might have passed if not for– 

“I think his memories might be leaking through, maybe. It’d explain the foul mood he was in Thursday, and the migraine on Friday.” It’d weighed on him, since he could remember the pair of them at the Lukas Manor, the concern for Tim having tickled his subdued mind before Elias had brushed it from his mind like he might a spider from a picnic blanket. 

“Did you have that?” Jon asked, concern palpable, his mind snuggling against Martin’s like a concerned dog searching for the injury. Martin heaved out a breath. 

“I don’t, I had more misgivings about this party than I thought I’d have? And when I saw Peter again…” 

_ A bloody smile, and the smallest drips of blood, tangled in Peter’s beard, and the assurance, from him and Elias, his master, that Martin had  _ served his purpose,  _ been so very  _ good…

Martin shuddered, and Jon’s hand tightened in his. Tentatively, he reached out with his mind, relaxing when Martin did, caught for a quiet moment in the feedback loop of mutual satisfaction, of _yours,_ and **mine.** Martin took a deep breath, and continued. 

“...and he, Elias said he should let anyone at the party drink him, and there were a  _ lot  _ of people. He could have run into someone.” Martin finished, before a horrible thought occurred to him. “God, what if he ran into that guy Simon Fairchild introduced. Mike. I saw them together at the start and the end, and Tim was flirting with him like he  _ liked  _ him. Not like he does when he’s getting information, you know.” 

Jon held Martin as he shuddered, pondering what to do. 

“I tried to help with his workload,” Jon began, making noises of agreement when Martin snorted. “I know, I know. There’s just not much else I can do.” Jon scrubbed a hand down his face with a sigh. 

Martin rubbed his thumb across the back of Jon’s hand. “You know, you could  _ try  _ what you did with me.” 

Jon huffed out a quiet laugh. “Yes, let me use my, quote, "Jimmy Magma patented Spooky bullshit," unquote, on Tim Stoker, that'll go down well. I might as well try it out on Georgie. Let Melanie and Georgie both try and kill me.” 

Martin shoved Jon's hand without letting it go, ending up more like pushing a bicycle pedal with his hand than a proper shove. Jon jostled him back anyway. 

“You know what I mean!” Martin insisted.

Despite the darkness, Martin could  _ see  _ the sombre, frustrated expression on Jon’s face, and feel the guilt swim out of him. “I do. There’s just. I can’t talk to him without hurting him, and I can’t avoid him without making him go into withdrawals. Hurting him. It… there’s no way to be the thing I am without hurting him, and he’s an old friend.” 

Martin sighed, craning his neck up to kiss Jon’s forehead. “I’ll talk to him. About tonight. Tell him we ran into Peter Lukas at Annabelle’s and it brought some memories back. I won’t even mention you, if you want, but I’m sure he knows already that you’re  _ worried,  _ I’m pretty sure all of us Know that no matter what you do _.”  _

It didn't make it better, that his best efforts weren't enough to keep his feelings, his desires, out of his- his coworker's heads. Jon could only keep trying to keep himself to himself. Instinctively, Jon curled up closer, a cool weight beneath the duvet. “I haven’t–”  _ Fed him,  _ was the first phrasing, like Tim was a half-stray puppy– “He hasn’t had any of my blood in a while, so he’ll be in Monday or Tuesday. Which I’m sure he’ll be stoked about.” 

“I’ll talk to him then.” Martin said it with finality, “I don’t know either, Jon, but, I’ll try.” 

"Thank you." Jon said at last, and Martin hummed as Jon's free hand ran awkwardly through his hair. 

It was a long time before Martin Slept, even with Jon keeping dreams of Elias and Peter at bay. 


	4. Domestic Arrangements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin and Tim have a chat, a fight, and tea.

Jon was long gone by the time Martin was up. It wasn’t summer yet, but the days were lengthening: it might be sooner rather than later Martin couldn’t have Jon stay at all. They’d have to work out what to do by then, he supposed. Though by then maybe living in the Institute would be what he and Jon wanted. 

He made himself tea and a note to look into boxed mattresses. There was only so long he was willing to sleep in the office cot. Especially since it would probably be too narrow to cuddle on. 

The Archives were quiet when he got in. Jon was nowhere to be seen. Melanie had left her “Following Up” placard out, on top of a file Martin didn’t recognise, and Tim was looking even worse than Thursday. Despite the warmer weather, he’d rugged up, his arms pulled into his jumper, and his knees into his chest. He didn’t look up when Martin came in, and he went straight to the breakroom. 

The routine was straightforward enough. Get the kettle whistling, set up whoever was having tea (milk and two sugar for him, a splash and a half teaspoon for Tim), and whatever biscuits or snack there was to be had. Remembering what’d helped when Jane Prentiss had him flatbound for a couple of days, Martin had prepared: as well as the more usual digestives, he’d brought ‘Nduja, jerky, and savoury crackers to put them on. It’d helped, to have that earthy, meaty flavour, even though it hadn’t brought any more relief from the problem than the tinned peaches or beans had. 

Despite the ancient kettle taking its time as ever, Tim hadn’t moved when Martin got back out, and didn’t look over at him even when Martin placed the tray with mugs and plate in front of him. Only when Martin dragged his chair over did Tim look up. 

“The other hot liquid on which this office runs. Great.” Tim’s eyes were bleary, still caked with sleep and the deep shadows under his eyes had run past concerning into intervention territory. 

“Well, I figure if Jon’s not here, then,” He gestured at the tea, picking up his own mug. 

Tim scoffed. He made no move to unclamp his arms from his knees, staring flatly at Martin. 

“Just like the blood bank. Sugar, hot drink and sodium. Except you volunteer for that, don’t you?” 

Martin frowned. 

“Look, if you don’t want it I can get you some beef stock or something–” 

“You just take it in stride, don’t you? There’s nothing wrong, it’s just your  _ boyfriend  _ isn’t just a drain on  _ you  _ he’s taking the whole bloody office out with him!” 

Martin nearly rose to that one, cheeks hot, anger welling up, but–

Tim’s fists were clenched, their shaking obvious now they came away from his knees. No wonder he hadn’t started his tea. Stock wasn’t likely to do him much better. Martin pushed the plate of meaty snacks forward. “Tim–”

“Fuck off. Just because whatever you pair has going on is working for you, don’t you come and try and play nice with me like this is all normal, all  _ safe sane and consensual,  _ when it fucking  _ isn’t!”  _

That did it. Martin nodded, his cheeks fully flush with anger now, nodded and spat “Oh, yeah, it’s all very above board, Tim, that’s why you’re the only one in pain, and why I didn’t have to worry about Peter  _ fucking  _ Lukas trying to, trying to  _ steal  _ me like he thinks I’m, I’m, I’m the last good bottle of wine at a wedding!” 

With that went the last of Martin’s breath, and he took a scalding gulp of tea that left the roof of his mouth burnt, scowling angrily at Tim. 

Tim… blinked. That would have been a lot to take in anyway. He put his feet down, nearly falling forward before catching himself on the edge of the desk with shaking hands. 

Martin wasn’t done being angry: maybe that was okay. Tim clearly wasn’t done being a bit shit about Jon. But that could wait for now, wait until Tim wasn’t clearly barely holding himself together with will, spite, and sarcasm. 

Tim looked up, met Martin’s eyes. He worked his tongue around a suddenly dry mouth. 

“Peter Lukas.” 

Martin looked down. 

“Yeah. Elias made Jon take me with him to a party on Saturday: he was there. I wondered if you hadn’t run into someone? From the same party. Since seeing him again made some of my memories of that party of his Elias took us to. Made us forget.” 

Tim nodded slowly, before suddenly locking up, eyes wide enough to dislodge some of the residue of troubled sleep

“He didn’t–”

_ (he had to struggle, had to say something, in his head at least, had to tilt his chin back and to the left so Peter could  _ **_Jon Jon was here it was all right_ ** _ )  _

Martin was sure he’d run out of blood to race to his face eventually. “Jon stopped him. But it brought it all back. Did you run into that Mike guy, or something?” 

Now it was Tim’s turn to flush. With anger, interest, it barely mattered. “No.” 

Martin sagged a little with relief, before popping straight back up. “Not someone else either?” 

Tim shook his head, and pulled the plate over closer to his chair. He was definitely going to need some of these, if he was going to tell Martin the whole story. And hey, if he was going to give up, why not give up altogether! That was the way to do it. 

“I tried to kill Elias. He made me remember it.” 

Martin opened his mouth, closed it. Opened it again. 

“You  _ tried to kill Elias?!”  _

Tim laughed, a harsh and dry buzz. “Don’t sound so thrilled.” 

“You know how Melanie talks about that, right?” Martin was still sounding awestruck. Served him right. Like not having read the office book club novel, he was left out. 

Tim took a big bit of nduja and bit into it as though wishing it was being served at Bouchard’s funeral. 

“I figured, well, what’s worse than watching your brother get skinned alive, right? Nothing Elias could possibly have on me. And then there was the party. And then there was a vampire who might have been my brother. Or a vampire  _ wearing  _ my brother. Or might be entirely made up by He-liars Bitch-hard himself. I don’t know! And because I don’t have enough of Jon’s blood in me, I don’t know if that’s even my biggest problem right now.” 

Tim watched as Martin sagged down in his chair, taking that in. It was stupid to be glad they’d both hurt each other with a revelation, now: Tim could enjoy a little stupidity, since nothing else was helping. 

Martin reached for a biscuit, then stopped. 

“Do you want my company?” 

Tim thought about getting up the anger he’d started with, and sighed, exhausted. “I hear misery loves company,” he said, finishing off the meaty snack and taking another with a slightly steadier hand, “Stick around. We can find out if it’s true.”


	5. Mealtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Tim have a freak out and a frank discussion. Tim can have a little a Jon's blood. As a necessity of working in the Institute.

Martin was right: the meaty aftertaste of the jerky and whatever the salami paste was called helped. They didn’t stop his hands tremouring or the unsteadiness of his legs, the Knowledge that there was somewhere he should be, but it left Tim feeling a little less empty and drained. Martin stuck around a little longer, and they talked about innocuous things: favourite songs, an upcoming exhibit at the Tate, and they pretended Tim wasn’t waiting anxiously for Jon. Eventually, as Tim had trouble keeping a conversation going, staring down the hallway any time there was a noise, Martin let him be, rather than keep embarrassing himself with how anxious he was becoming.

Jon was in the Archives, he knew: he doubted Martin would be, otherwise, given only the night before Peter Lukas had tried to reenact the worst party of his and Martin’s lives. Tim curled back on himself, his office chair halfway pointed at the desk propping him up, and the hallway from which Jon would arrive. 

When Jon came back to the office, he was rubbing the back of his neck, and he smelled different. Not unlike some old-world miasma, he seemed to move in a cloud of faint musk, bergamot, and sandalwood. Of Elias. Tim had never worked out if it was a natural thing or a cologne, but it often clung after meetings, but never overpowered in person. Elias had  _ other  _ techniques for that, he supposed. The smell and speculation sent him into a moment's reverie, trying to figure it out, and the smell got closer, more demanding. 

"Tim? Would you come into my office?" His master said, and Tim rose without thinking, falling in step behind him. His master sat, and so did Tim, kneeling before sitting on his heels. Jon exclaimed in horror, standing up fast enough that his chair fell over with a sharp bang. 

"T-- What are you doing, are you all right--" Jon tried to ask about 5 questions and once, driving the reverie away and leaving Tim kneeling  where he belonged beside Jon's empty chair. FUCK. 

He tried to scramble to his feet, despite the bile in his mouth, the unsteadiness in his legs. He didn’t make it, Jon swooping forward with inhuman speed to take his arm gently, to carefully deposit him in a chair. 

( _ Jon was such a considerate master)  _

“Tim. Are you all right?” 

Tim choked down both his bile, and his gratitude.

“You know when I last drank you, boss, what the fuck do you think?” 

"Right. Sorry." 

Jon nodded, bringing his wrist to bite it, and offered it to Tim. He grabbed it and had the cut to his mouth before Jon was finished moving, drinking as fast as he could from the trickle of blood he offered. Each drop seemed to bring him back to an even keel, but he could no longer force down his gratitude, and disgust, instead riding a swell of it toward Jon’s approval, and worry. 

_ You’ll be all right,  _ that approval promised.  _ Your cavalierness worries me  _ was nonetheless written underneath, not yet tamped down after visiting Elias and hearing about Tim’s attempt to murder him. Tim’s stomach dropped, and had it not been likely to waste some of Jon’s blood, he’d have whimpered. 

For several, easy heartbeats they stayed there, breathing together, reassuring and worried by turns. Jon extricated his arm slowly once he was sure Tim was well, pushing his thick shock of hair out of his face to keep him back as he reclaimed it. He licked the wound with a shudder, letting it more quickly heal, and while Tim didn’t whine It was a near thing. 

They sat in a silence easily mistaken as companionable. 

“You going to tell me it was stupid?” Tim asked after a while. 

Jon hissed out a laugh. “No. I’m worried about you, but Martin thinks you all know that.” 

Tim nodded slowly. It was inescapable, at this point. The concern melded awkwardly with the Knowledge that Jon knew best, that he needed their cooperation, but it intermingled with it always nonetheless. 

“I need to know what happened that night. When we were at Lukas’s party. He said to ask you, that you  _ knew what was best for me.”  _

The words didn’t come out right, less sarcastic, more sincere, than Tim intended. 

Jon turned to Tim in surprise, eyes wide behind his glasses. 

“Are you asking me to use my ‘Jimmy Magnet bullshit’ on you?” Jon asked it lightly, but his hands clutched at his bony knees, and his eyes stayed wide. 

“First and last time for everything,” Tim tried to tell himself along with Jon. “I need to know, Jon. I need to know if Danny is still alive.” 

Jon sucked in a breath. 

“I won’t ask again.” Tim said tersely. “Get it over with.” 

Gently, Jon reached out to cup Tim’s chin in his cool hand, and Tim leaned forward and kept falling. 


	6. The Greatest Ringmaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3 updates in a day? INCREDIBLE. 
> 
> Jon and Tim discover who was playing at Danny. Elias has a wonderful time with Martin and Tim, before and after the party itself. Tim makes a rash promise, and follows through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the most handsy Elias will get: It depicts the party at which Martin and Tim were drunk from while under the influence.

Tim didn’t feel trapped in the night, with Jon. He didn’t know if it was a different skill, or Jon trying to be nice, but rather than feeling trapped as a passenger in his own body as he lived the night through again, it was more like, like he was surveying a security tape, maybe, or better, experiencing a hallucination alongside a statement. It might be terrible, or enthralling, he might be stuck until the scene was through, but it didn’t burn into him, like it had with Elias. 

He watched as he and Martin came back to the Institute, some concept of a ‘work function’ that they didn’t need to make sense. Both wore good clothes, Martin a deep v-necked jumper over a button up, and Tim a suit jacket over a brightly patterned collared shirt. Both, Jon noted, could be easily undone, pulled aside: he thought again of the web-entangled thralls and their lowcut blouses at Annabelle’s, and his teeth extended to grind in anger. 

Tim’s stomach dropped as he watched Elias smile at them like an absent parent on awards night. He poured them glasses of wine first, keeping up the fiction of a normal office function right up until Martin refused. 

“I don’t drink, the, the tannins–” 

Elias smiled, with far too many teeth, at his own private joke. 

"Oh, you do not drink,  _ wine _ , Martin? A traditionalist!" Tim gagged. "But I'm afraid I must  _ insist _ . Go on, now. _To the archives_." 

Deftly, Elias gently took them both in hand.  They both found their glasses rising, the toast on their lips and soon after, the wine. Elias filled their glasses back up. 

They drank in unison, drinking toast after toast to whatever took their master’s fancy. The Institute, its founder, Jon, his archival staff…. It all blurred together very quickly, almost as if, to Elias, and therefore to them, it was all one and the same, in the end. He was so happy with them both…. They rode high on both flattery and rich, expensive alcohol. After the wine, they tried brandy, and an ancient, dusty bottle of tawny, all of it aged and nutty and fruity like fine, rich plums to flavour the blood's fruitcake. 

Elias wasn’t done with his preparations. Gently, he pulled Tim close with both hands and mind, and deftly undid a few more of his shirt’s buttons, leaving his throat ‘beautifully exposed’. He took a long while to admire Tim’s chest, and the pulsing of his veins, before turning to Martin and coaxing him into his lap, letting Martin undo his own shirt a little more as Elias busied himself tidying his hair. Tim checked his own in the mirror, before being turned around to fetch a few old fashioned hip flasks from a cabinet. 

“One for the road, then, gentlemen.” Elias said, taking the flasks and filling them up. They obediently flanked him and followed him out to the waiting car, pausing only for doorways. There was more toasting, more touching: Jon was getting angrier, Tim could tell, but this was something he’d almost expected from the slimy old man. It was what happened at the party that he  _ needed  _ to know. 

He could feel Jon’s hand gently take his, soothe his thumb over his pulse that was getting much too fast, because he wasn’t trapped. He clung to that, clung to Jon’s hand with his as his chin was held gently, easy enough to pull away from. 

“Do you need me to stop?” Jon asked, holding the memory in place mercifully as they were getting out of the car, not suring anything more horrifying. 

Tim scowled. “I want this over with. I want to know what Elias lied about. Whether–” Tim sucked in a ragged breath, a half dozen possibilities running behind his eyes, all humiliatingly open for Jon to see. His pulse beat faster until Jon pushed a simulacrum of calm over him. 

“I’ll show you,” Jon promised, pushing aside images of Tim leaving Danny to be used as a puppet, or turned, or otherwise made a mockery of by the Stranger clan. 

Away they went again. 

Martin and he were manhandled almost from the first. Simon and Mike were the first, Martin heading off to the horror that was Peter at Elias’s right, and Tim left behind. Jon’s teeth moved from their clench only to grind, as Tim watched himself make out enthusiastically with Mike, who smeared his own blood across his face and tousled his hair in his attempt to make kissing him comfortable and not make their height difference any more noticeable than it was already. 

Tim was then escorted out beside the dancefloor, eagerly following on Mike’s arm and being inspected as he passed. His stomach, he remembered, felt full of butterflies, and few were the nervous kind. Even those were about  _ disappointing his master,  _ rather than the vampires who drank from him, laughed and roughly or gently or sharply took hold of him, and had a sip or a drink or simply enjoyed the novelty of him. 

Honestly, Mike Crew was hateable for much the same reason as Jon  _ would  _ be, if he could still hate Jon. He was trying so hard to be decent about it, introducing Tim like a person, despite how he was treated, again and again, like something between a coffee machine, a stuffed animal in a kindergarten, and a puppet for enjoyment. 

Jon looked over at Tim, somewhere else, and decided against asking if he needed a break. Tim thought he’d have punched him. He had to be getting close. Close to knowing what happened to Danny. 

Tim wasn’t prepared for the low snarl that came from all around when Jon saw Annabelle Cane come over to see him. He was still standing fairly easily, at that point, But his posture changed as she got closer, mimicking her own easy posture. Gracefully, he turned to face the right angle between herself and her guest, stuck staring straight ahead and unable to see who she was speaking to, who  _ they  _ were speaking to, in perfect synchrony. 

“...shame that they didn’t come, really,” he sighed, in an airy affect that didn’t suit him, but seemed at home in his head. There was an answer, but he didn’t need to pay attention to that, he was only a mouthpiece. Annabelle’s gentle webs and sharp teeth and hungry venom ate into him, etched the words he needed into them and pulled them out of his mind just as quickly. 

Jon was more distressed than he was. Tim’s pulse barely rose, but Jon was rigid, the hand at his cheek like a slab of ice, the hand in his like a manacle. Tim couldn’t ignore this, like he had the others, so intense was Jon’s attention to Annabelle. He leant into the hand on his cheek, and wrapped his hands around Jon’s in his lap, trying to will him into motion once more. 

Jon’s red eyes, perfectly matched, blinked, and the scene of the memory was suddenly background, not foreground. 

“This. This isn’t helping you solve your mystery, I–” 

“Don’t apologise. Do.” Tim kept the heat out of his voice only with difficulty. He needed. He needed so badly to  _ Know,  _ and Jon was stuck, and he should be caring for him. “Drink from me if you need to, but I need to see this. You fucking  _ Know  _ I do.” 

“Right.” 

That galvanised Jon, and the nightmare was foreground again, Annabelle kissing his forehead and gliding away with someone with a shock of tight ringlet curls. 

And then they’d caught up to the part Elias had shared. 

Sarah didn’t drink from him, and instead went and got her boss. Jon didn’t prolong his suffering like Elias had, but it still felt like far too long until he saw the face of– 

Someone. Someone who was both a stranger and a Stranger. Not Danny, and not Not!Danny. 

Jon was making a noise like having multiple tabs open, playing different creepy music going. 

She stayed She. Not Danny. She called out to him. 

“Tim? Tim  **Stoker** ?”

The voice cut through the hall with its sharp edges and sense of command. She was a tall woman, and her eyes even from across the room seemed wrong, burgundy and crimson, lighting up like hideous flames to see him. See him again? He didn’t know. This time, it wasn’t the happy-helpful haze of pleasant service that had him not knowing. He simply didn’t. 

She strode over, the crowd parting to let her through, and to watch. 

_ The ringmaster’s hat she was wearing may not entirely be an affection, Tim thought muzzily. She ran the show.  _ Even in his hazy state, his guts clenched into an angry, burning fist. 

Tim-of-now retched, and somewhere far off Jon gently repositioned him, his eyes staring still into Tim’s as he knelt in front of Tim on the sofa, letting him put his head down, keep his stomach level. 

_ (Jon was such a considerate master.)  _

She got right up in his face, long, too long, fingers holding him under his chin and pulling him up. If he weighed more to her than a cluster of grapes, she didn’t show it. Her eyes still didn’t match. Crimson and burgundy.Her hands were hard, like plastic, digging into him as she held him from the ground, his feet dangling. 

“Hullo, stranger! Fancy seeing you at a party like this~! At least, without some kind of a fight!” 

“I don’t know you.” Tim hadn’t realised he’d be so  _ relieved _ . The woman in front of him was not his brother, was someone else entirely who led the Stranger clan. She seemed familiar, but that was all. His relief dissolved the strange joint feeling oh the him-of-then and the him-of-now, and it really was like watching a statement. 

When she held him up, his feet dangled, despite how tall he was. Her arm didn’t move, but he realised his toes were starting to touch the floor, her fishnet shirt starting to strain against new-formed muscles, her trousers to gather at her ankles….

“Maybe I should be your brother! He ought to be familiar.”

Oh, no. 

Jon siphoned off some of his anger and disgust, kept him from throwing up with the realisation he hadn’t known his brother was killed, skinned by the Great Grimmauldi, the creature in front of him who wore his brother casually, simply to startle a reaction from him. Distantly, he felt a redoubling of disgust as she tried to lure him off to  _ reminisce,  _ when Mike stepped in for him, protected him with Elias’s words, and his  _ social standing _ . She taunted Elias, which, honestly, only made things worse.

As the clown from his memory bit him, drank him, and the venom and his orders forced him to feel good about it, Tim started to cry. The sharp jab of hatpins into his hair was nothing, the force throwing him back into Mike was nothing, the hunt vampires coming and drinking in his needy answers and his blood were nothing. All there was was the contemptuous back of the stranger, and the rising anger and self-disgust. Once again, he was faced with Danny’s killer, and he did  _ nothing.  _

Jon started to release him from the memory, but Tim gripped his wrists. 

“Don’t you  _ dare  _ keep any of this from me,” he demanded, and then noticed the bloody tears on Jon’s own face, and the exhauseted bruise-like bags beneath his eyes. “Drink from me after if you have to, but don’t you  _ dare  _ let me leave here without knowing everything.” 

Jon swallowed, his hand as rigid against Tim’s cheek as ever, and nodded, the memory-hallucination becoming stronger again as Elias came down the stairs with Martin. 

Jon watched alongside him as he made unsteady finger-guns and innuendo at Mike, as the guy blushed and waved back. Tim was already too deadened by Nikola to care much about how he’d felt about Mike under the influence, but Jon thought Martin was right: it was a sincere flirt, one that seemed well received, if the blush and clumsy wave were any indication. There was being polite to the staff, and there was nearly hitting yourself in the face waving back to the drinks cart. 

Elias glided despite the weight of both of them on his arms, delicately guiding them into the car beside him. He was still crooning at Martin, to start with, but both Jon and Tim could feel it when he turned his regard to Tim, playing him back like a tape recorder, chuckling at parts that interested him. 

Tim bet he could guess which parts. 

“You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, hmmm?” he said, delicately licking a finger and scrubbing it gently against one of the deeper wounds, oozing slightly where Tim had disturbed the scab. “Don’t worry about it now. You’ve been so very good for me.” 

Tim of the past, Tim of the moment, and Jon, all shuddered. 

“Both of you have,” he continued, letting Martin and Tim curl up and rest their heads in his lap. He played with their hair as the car drove on. 

They got to Tim’s flat and the driver idled as Elias sat him up, gently tending the dozens of bites he'd amassed. He took the hat out of Tim’s hair gently, letting it fall back into its natural state, before looking down at where Martin was asleep in his lap over his pocket. The pocket where he’d left his silver knife. 

“Blast.” Elias said with a smirk, “Well, you know the saying, let sleeping dogs lie?” 

Tim-then frowned. Tim-now had an idea of where this might be going, only becoming more certain as Elias’s teeth grew sharp, and he scraped his tongue against them with his mouth closed. 

_ Lean forward. I’ll let you have enough that you’ll wake up with only a hangover and some hickeys, hmmm? Not an unusual Friday night for you, I’m sure.  _

Tim leant forward, and drank, and woke up in his own bed. 

* * *

Tim leant backwards out of Jon’s hand and gasped, tears and snot still running down his face. 

Jon was still kneeling at his feet, a  _ comical  _ fucking image to his addled brain right now. He didn’t get up, still sorting out the bloody tears running down his own face. 

Tim should offer him a tissue. What Tim had was a dirty hanky, so he used it on himself instead. 

Jon didn’t need to breathe, so the fact that said breathing was ragged…. Was that better or worse?

“I’m sorry, Tim. I didn’t. He was-- “ 

“It wasn’t Danny. It was better than it could have been. Now get up here before you faint, or worse. And Elias shoves some  _ other  _ spectre of his death in me to punish me again.” 

He had  _ promised his master,  _ had worked him into this state. He pushed down his disgust and let Jon struggle back onto the sofa, and drink deep. 

He pretended he didn’t notice how much everything stopped hurting for a while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a short, darkly funny coda, and then it will be done. Thank you so much for reading and your comments!! I'm so glad so many of you have enjoyed it!


	7. Coda: Working Relationship, Or, That Fucking Hat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias has a smug, final laugh. That is a very fetching ringmaster's cap, it'd be a shame if it went to waste!

Tim really was getting better at subtlety, Elias mused. His heart still beat too fast, but Elias could only just make out his footsteps as he strode down the corridor. He would have to take marks off for letting the point of his stake slide along the wallpaper, but that was all right. One couldn't have everything on their second run. 

He didn't have time to courteously move his meeting with Annabelle. Unlike Arthur of accounts from last time, she was likely to get into a strop, if he did. Perhaps even a _mood._ And their working relationship had been so positive this century. 

No, there was only one thing for it, and Elias would be lying if he said he hadn't been looking forward to having occasion to use it. He reached into his breast pocket, fetched a key, and opened the bottom drawer. 

* * *

Tim knocked with his hand, this time. He would give Elias as little warning as he could, and maybe the git would actually die. 

"Come in, Tim." 

Of course he Knew. Of course he did. Tim swallowed a curse and the fear that rose up from his throat. He opened the door, keeping the stake out of sight of the desk-- 

The desk. Elias sat behind it, his grin smug, and sharp. For once, he was not the worst thing in the room. 

On the desk sat a plumed hat, a little rumpled from a long and forceably forgotten car trip. Tim's mouth went dry. He couldn't look away, his eyes following it as Elias picked it up, and dusted it off. 

"If you go, and offer yourself as a snack for Jon, I won't say anything about this." Elias said. "If you make me late for my meeting, I will be very cross, and I might call in a favour from our mutual friend. She's not exactly _cordial_ with me right now, but for such a prize as yourself, Mister Stoker, I'm _sure_ we can come to an accommodating arrangement." 

Tim's vision swam, and he slammed the door shut, nearly tripping over a non-descript young man with a vacant expression in his haste to get away, into the archives, and find Jon. 

Elias's laughter echoed after him as Annabelle's "representative" opened the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again!!! this has been great fun to do in large part due to your comments and encouragement! <3

**Author's Note:**

> AutumnAgain and Nevanna, thank you.


End file.
